From: HM Revenue & Customs
A gang of four from Southampton, who mixed floor sweepings into their counterfeit tobacco, have been jailed for a total of 11 years and three months after an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

HMRC investigators, working with officers from Sussex Police and the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, raided an illegal tobacco factory in John Street, Southampton, in April 2014 and seized around three tonnes of tobacco.

A portion of the massive profits from the huge contraband tobacco market in Ontario could be finding its way into terrorist hands, according to research by an international security professor at Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University.

Christian Leuprecht is to present some of his findings at the Anti-Contraband Tobacco Working Group Tuesday in Ottawa. Contraband cigarettes account for almost half of Ontario’s cigarette market, and Leuprecht said that with the huge profits to be made and the relative ease of entering the market, it could be a tempting business for terrorist groups to get into.

AN illegal tobacco processing factory has been discovered at an industrial unit after two men were arrested at a motorway road check with half-a-tonne of processed tobacco in their van.

The two suspects, a 36-year-old man from Portsmouth and a 28-year-old man from Glasgow, were arrested following the police check carried out by Warwickshire Police at Warwick Services on the M40 on November 17.